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Star Wars: Jedi Outcast Looks Awesome Animated in LEGO

Fans of the seminal Expanded Universe video game Star Wars Jedi Knight II: Jedi Outcastfrom 2002will be thrilled to check out a LEGO animated recreation of its core plot and action-centered set pieces. Serving as the sequel to the preceding series entry Dark Forces II from 1997 - and set two years after the events depicted in the 1998 expansion pack Mysteries of the Sith - Jedi Outcast was a first and third-person action game developed by Raven Software for PC and Mac and Vicarious Visions for Xbox and GameCube.

The LucasArts published Jedi Knight series - of which Jedi Outcast served as the fourth installment - centered around the chief exploits of former Imperial officer Kyle Katarn, who over the course of five games becomes a member of the New Republic and an instructor at the Jedi Academy. In Jedi Outcast, players take control of Katarn in a heated battle against Dark Jedi Desann and his followers - a central narrative adventure that has now been lovingly recreated as an animated LEGO series online.

Created by independent YouTube user raptor5120, the first episode of an animated LEGO series based on the events depicted in Jedi Outcast has been published online for diehard fans to pore over with gleeful abandon. For anyone who grew up playing the original game in the critically acclaimed Jedi Knight series, seeing Katarn embark on his famously ill-fated Blue milk run in LEGO form is an unexpected treat.

Since the Jedi Knight series concluded in 2003 following the release of Jedi Academy, Katarn has become another minor footnote in the long history of Expanded Universe stories set against the vast tapestry that is the Star Wars universe. As such, it is doubly intriguing to see him return in LEGO form in a lovingly recreated homage to Jedi Outcast some fifteen years later.

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At the time of its initial release, LucasArts was building upon an Expanded Universe story in Jedi Outcast that served to heighten the hype then-surrounding the contemporaneous prequel trilogy being written and directed by franchise architect, creator, and property owner George Lucas. In hindsight, the entire Jedi Knight narrative arc is tinged with a certain nostalgia for a time when Star Wars stories were more actively sought for outside of the movie theater. This makes this animated LEGO episodic recreation all the more worthwhile, for those looking to revisit a classic example of exploratory franchise fiction at its finest.